Two Men on a Plane
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Mark's not flying solo on this one.


Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.

Thanks for the swift beta work, Owl.

**Author's Note: **This missing scene continues on after "It's What's Inside That Counts" and "The Do-It-Yourself Job".

**Two Men on a Plane**

by L.M. Lewis

Hardcastle was of an age that still thought it was an amazing thing to decide at the breakfast table to make a journey from L.A. to the East Coast and know you'd be there in time to shoot some craps before bed. Not that there'd been much breakfast. He'd been too keyed up, sitting there waiting for McCormick to finally arrive home, and wondering if the next call was going to be from a precinct house.

And once he _had_ come home—looking only about half as guilty as Hardcastle figured he ought to—things had started moving pretty fast. The judge still wasn't quite sure whose idea it had been that he should come along on this expedition. There'd been an invitation, he was pretty sure, but he might have maneuvered McCormick into offering it.

All he knew for certain was that the kid wasn't in any shape to be heading out on his own again, and he didn't like the sound of this guy—this Sonny whatshisname—or the look on McCormick's face when he'd said he needed to talk to him.

But if Mark was grateful for the company, it was hard to tell. He hadn't said more than fifty words since they'd boarded the plane, with not even a smile to spare for the very attractive attendant. It wasn't hostility, more like a deep pensiveness that made him oblivious to everything else. There was tension, too. Hardcastle wasn't sure when he'd learned to read the subtler signs, but they were all there.

Hardcastle thought about this Sonny character and suppressed a pinched and judgmental expression. McCormick hadn't spelled out exactly why it was so damn important that he see the man, but in conjunction with a birthday—one of the big-round-number kind that was a milestone of sorts—it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to have a pretty good inkling.

He'd gone through McCormick's files enough times to have noted an absence of next of kin in his San Quentin documents, and the references to some much earlier brushes with New Jersey social services suggested that the condition was long-standing. Mark had mentioned his mother in passing, but never so much as a word concerning his father.

And here was a guy with more aliases than you could safely shake a stick at, working in a second-rate lounge off the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Nobody flies cross-country to see someone like that unless he has a damn good reason.

_You're__ doing it._

Hardcastle lost the battle to keep the grimace at bay. _He_ was going because otherwise McCormick would have done it by himself, and if last night's little excursion had shown anything, it was that turning thirty had not matured the younger man's judgment much.

"Thank you."

The two words jolted Hardcastle from his own bout of pensiveness. They'd been uttered quietly, but with a decent amount of feeling.

All he came back with was, "Huh?"

"For the watch," Mark said, still quiet. "I didn't get a chance to thank you. I appreciate it."

Hardcastle was pretty sure that on any other ordinary day this expression of appreciation would have been spiked with some humorous remark about being on time for chores or a general reference to the early hours at Gull's Way. A straight-up thank you between them was foreign territory. It only added to the strangeness of the situation. But at least it was a conversational opening. A guy would think that flying against the sun—the hours racing by in double-time—would make for a swiftly-passing day, but five hours in the air was still a long time.

"You're welcome," he replied and then added, in the spirit of normalization, "I figured this way you won't be able to use that old 'my watch must've stopped' malarkey."

"True," Mark said with an exaggerated sigh of regret. It was probably intended as humor but was a little too close to his current mood.

"Atlantic City," Hardcastle said—it was an awkward and unexpected transition, but he plowed ahead, "you grew up around there?"

He felt the younger man twitch but didn't turn his head to look at him.

"Not really," Mark finally replied, sounding a little wary at the direction things had taken. "I've been there a couple times—as a kid. I lived further north—a couple different places."

His tone had gone flat, to match his vagueness.

"This Sonny Daye guy . . ." Hardcastle trailed off, hating how tentative he sounded, but he'd already felt the flinch, transmitted through the armrest between them, and the slight lean away from him—like a physical manifestation of the withdrawal he'd noticed the whole week before. He tried to cover his sigh and changed tacks from the question he really wanted to ask.

"—you think he's dangerous?"

Mark twitched again, but it seemed more in surprise. Hardcastle couldn't tell if it was the question itself or the idea of him asking it.

There was a hanging moment of silence before McCormick answered. "I don't think so. I didn't find anything violent in his record." His brow furrowed as if it wasn't something he'd given thought to previously.

"But people can change," he finally admitted. Then he turned his head abruptly, facing the judge for the first time since they'd sat down. "You didn't bring your gun, did you?"

"'Course I did," Hardcastle huffed. "I _always_ do."

It wasn't his imagination; even in the indirect lighting of the plane cabin, Mark visibly paled. "Well," he said insistently, "you're not going to need it."

"You never know. You said you weren't sure, didn't ya? And, besides, you never know when something's gonna come up and there you are, your gun back at home—what kind of planning is that?"

A frown had joined Mark's expression, completing the picture of disapproval. "Just keep it in your bag when we get there, Kemosabe . . . _please_," he added as an apparent afterthought. "I told you, I just want to talk to this guy—not drill him."

"And what you want to say to him, is it gonna make him happy?"

Mark was facing forward again, the frown more permanently in place. There was no answer for a few seconds and then he finally issued a quiet, "Maybe not."

"Well, there, _see_?" Hardcastle crossed his arms on his chest and settled his shoulders. "You don't go around saying things to make guys like that unhappy without being prepared for contingencies—that's what I always say. I didn't think I'd have to _use_ it necessarily."

"'Guys like that'," Mark murmured, still staring at the seat in front of him.

He was silent for a moment and then seemed to draw himself together. "I'm a guy like that—" the pensive tone was gone, replaced by something more superficial, "—and you say stuff that gets me riled up all the time."

"Yeah, but I _know_ you," Hardcastle said lightly, "and, anyway, this guy's different."

"We might be more alike than you think," Mark retorted dryly.

"Uh-uh. Three major convictions and none of them iffy," Hardcastle shook his head, "and to cap it all off with a federal bank-robbery beef?"

Mark turned again sharply. "You looked up his record?"

"Yeah, while you were packing. I asked Frank to run it. They've got all this stuff on computers now, you know."

"_Frank_?" The younger man looked mortified. He bit his lower lip and finally asked, "Did you tell him why you were interested?"

"Nah," Hardcastle said casually, "I ask him for stuff like that all the time. He's used to it. Oh—he said to wish you a happy birthday."

Mark smiled weakly. He settled back again, not looking wholly mollified.

The silence settled in again, but it was only a few minutes before Hardcastle mused idly, "So . . . you want me to go with you?"

There was no immediate answer, just a quick sideward flick of McCormick's eyes and a puzzled expression.

"I mean when you go meet this guy . . . you said you didn't think he was dangerous, but—"

"Has it ever occurred to you, Hardcase, that _I_ might be dangerous?" Mark's puzzled look had given way to irritation.

The judge paused, mouth slightly open. He closed it and thought for a moment, then finally said, "Only when provoked."

There was a slight hint in the younger man's expression that this was approaching one of those times. Then, just as quickly, that faded away, perhaps on the realization that he was flying across the continent on the judge's dime and with very little explanation as to exactly why.

The overhead speaker crackled to life with the attendant announcing that they were beginning their descent to the Philadelphia International Airport and all that entailed. It was only after their seatbacks had been uprighted and seatbelts fiddled with, and silence had returned—reinforced by an increase in air pressure that muted all sound—that Mark started to speak again.

"Yeah," he said simply, "I'd like you to come with me."

Hardcastle nodded once as if that settled it. He was the one keeping his eyes forward now, all expression erased from his face as—paradoxically—he struggled with the challenge: how to look surprised, even completely taken aback, when Mark finally got around to introducing his father.


End file.
